Shocker – CRU's Jones: GISS is inferior

I was working on another project related to the CRU emails and came across this email from Dr.Phil Jones. I was stunned, not only because he was dissing another dataset, but mostly because that dissing hit many of the points about problems with the NASA GISS products we’ve covered here on WUWT and at Climate Audit.

Here’s the email with my highlights added. Email addresses have been partially redacted.

Here’s the thing, we’ve seen the problems with CRU’s temperature series in the code already. If Dr. Jones is aware of those problems, and he thinks GISS is inferior, well then, wow, just how bad is GISS?

I thought this statement was quite telling:

Their non-use of a base period (GISS using something very odd and NCDC first differences) means they can use

very short series that we can’t (as they don’t have base periods) but with short series it is impossible to assess for homogeneity.

One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980. See it listed here on the GISTEMP page. No other data sets use that period. Critics (including myself) have said that by using that period, it makes this graph’s trend look steeper than it would if the current 30 year period was used.

click for larger image

In the past couple of years we’ve seen two significant errors with NASA GISS that had to be corrected after they were discovered through the work done here at at WUWT and Climate audit. Public errors have not been found in CRU products during that time, because the data an code have been withheld.

To the credit of NASA GISS, they have been more transparent than CRU on data, stations used, and code.

Here are some of the relevant posts on WUWT where we address issues found with the NASA GISS temperature products:

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184 thoughts on “Shocker – CRU's Jones: GISS is inferior”

ROFL. I wonder if Jones wrote this in response to someone asking him about the large divergence that has happened between GISS and HadCrut3 in the last decade or so. Jones is kicking the stool out from under Gavin, since Gavin is clinging to the argument that temperature is still rising because GISS shows it rising.

Oh the irony, hyenas do bite each other?
What I don’t understand that they had 20 odd years to calibrate/homogenise the process between different instruments, methods and countries.
Before they want to take over the world…

I’m still waiting for the story on who they were that released ClimateGate and how they did it. It’s still sinking in how astonishing it is! Who could have imagined GISS would be talked about this way by CRU—and that it would be made public! There’s more fun to come I’d bet.
ClimateGate is gold!

This just gets stranger and stranger. I doubt any of these folks know what they truly have nor what it means. FUBAR, indeed.
BTW, a day or so ago I was thinking of the Honolulu “record highs” when I posted this: “What was it the man (I’ve forgotten where) said earlier this year when the sensor was reporting false high readings? Something like ‘We can’t change the numbers, we have to just report what the equipment displays.’ ”
The forgotten where = Honolulu
New readers should follow Anthony’s link to –
More on NOAA’s FUBAR Honolulu “record highs” ASOS debacle, PLUS finding a long lost GISS station
…and also related posts mentioned therein.

This is what I said! I emailed Phil Jones a while ago and asked why there was a difference between HadCRUt and GISS, and he actually personally emailed me back saying simply that HadCRU’s was/is ‘better’. He added other comments as well that I cannot remember. I could have put the email up on here, but irony of ironies I deleted it along with a lot of others just a month ago! Seriously!

Pulpable consensus, more like!
What does this do the story that, “even if you ignore HadCrut, the science is still solid, because it’s corroborated by other studies from around the world — such as from NASA”?

It’s worth reading the marvellous E.M.Smith on the GISS Temperature record issue. Data and source code in the public arena, reviewed with a great deal of effort, persistence, and, yes, brilliance.
And all made available online so that faith-shaken folk who can follow the code and the math, can have their own Popperian stab at falsifying the conclusion. The more the merrier.
That’s how real science happens.

Gee, thought those guys were brothers-in-arms. Sounds a little more intense than the UAH/RSS difference.
We really need to go back to the raw, raw data, sans TOBS, etc., and see what the global charts look like.
All the corrections we know about (GISS and USHCN, HadCrut unknown) have been in the pro-AGW upslope direction, warmer now, colder way back when, while one would think corrections should average out to zero or downslope, given increased population and UHI effect.

Uh, isn’t there a bit larger issue here?
Depending on who you look at as an authority, we have various temperature reconstructions going back anywhere from 1,000 years to many millions of years.
Ann arbitrary 30-year period of recent vintage has been selected as “normal”.
Go back and read the original Lamb, from East Anglica, on the climate history of the world.
The larger question is, given the length of the inferred record, is a 30-year base period statistically defensible? Can you select any arbitrary 30-year period and make accurate hindcasts and forecasts from that point? If you can demonstrate that it is, was the correct 30-year period chosen?
A second part of the question is do you actually understand the role the sun’s activity plays in shaping climate?
Isn’t this whole thing statistically irrelevant? Can you really draw Solar System sized conclusions from such a tiny data set?

tallbloke: I find the end of the third sentence in the quote to be the most telling part of Jones’s argument. “They also impose some urbanization adjustment which is based on population/night lights WHICH I DON’T THINK IS VERY GOOD.” Is this climate science at its best?

This post proves yet again that ‘The science is settled.’ – NOT.
The only thing HadCrut and GISS have in common is the way data has been bent and base periods cherry picked to show the desired trends.
Makes me sick when people calling themselves ‘climate scientists’ can’t admit that trends have zero information when dealing with non-linear systems, like our chotic climate, and the real measurement of what is happening is the amount of energy being gained, lost and stored at any moment in time.
The history of what happened in the past has no predictive value for the future, apart from a broad-brush observation that periods of cooling and warming are the norm. The notion that climate is stable and has an ‘ideal’ temperature, as pushed by the CAGW benders, is nonsensical. Energy flow changes on a second by second basis, as does the capacity of the various storage systems to absorb or release it.

Mattb: You wrote, “But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?”
Did you miss the last sentence in Anthony’s opening? Don’t bother to scroll up. Here it is again: “…but mostly because that dissing hit many of the points about problems with the NASA GISS products we’ve covered here on WUWT and at Climate Audit.”
And did you miss the links to the other posts here at WUWT that Anthony listed at the end of the post?

RICHARD LINDZEN ON COPENHAGEN
I fervently hope that Copenhagen will avoid canonising the absurd notion that climate is determined by any single parameter like CO2. The dubious attempts to link this parameter to every form of catastrophe is producing unwarranted fear. Imposing this notion as a matter of international law will set science back several centuries. The accompanying policies seem designed to do the same for society as a whole. The carbon control movement, like every malicious movement, seeks to cloak itself in an aura of virtue. Sentient citizens should be able to see through this patent ploy.
Richard Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyhttp://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427366.800-great-and-good-share-hopes-and-fears-for-copenhagen.html?page=1

OT but a good lead for you:
The Royal society have launched a website with much publicity called trailblazing where they claim the RS have the first Peer Reviewed paper in history. They then have highly sophisticated graphics where visitors can pick up on historic scientific papers (I presume with connection to work by RS members).
[quote]Welcome to Trailblazing, an interactive timeline for everybody with an interest in science. Compiled by scientists, science communicators and historians – and co-ordinated by Professor Michael Thompson FRS – it celebrates three and a half centuries of scientific endeavour and has been launched to commemorate the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary in 2010.
Trailblazing is a user-friendly, ‘explore-at-your-own-pace’, virtual journey through science. It showcases sixty fascinating and inspiring articles selected from an archive of more than 60,000 published by the Royal Society between 1665 and 2010.[/quote]
They have one paper for the period 2005 – 2009 and you guessed it; it is written by no other than Professor Michael Thomas who is very taken by the idea that we are all going to die of CO2 poisoning.
[quote]Switch off lights! Leave your 4×4 at home! This may help, but the magnitude of global warming forces scientists to think big. They want to filter sunlight by positioning a trillion sunshades in space; launch fleets of robot ships spraying water into the atmosphere; fertilize carbon-absorbing plankton by dumping tons of iron into the oceans. Massive interventions such as these are proposed and critically assessed in a Theme Issue of the Society’s Philosophical Transactions. They may be risky, but could become less risky than doing nothing. In a scene-setting paper, James Lovelock outlines his idea for stimulating blooms of algae that sequester carbon dioxide to the ocean floor. He emphasizes the extreme dangers of climate change, drawing on parables from simple models such as ‘daisy world’. Stocked with competing species of black daisies (absorbing the Sun’s heat) and white daisies (reflecting sunlight), this world evolves in ways similar to that of Earth. He ends with ethical advice. We should focus less on ‘human rights’ and more on ‘human obligations’ to preserve the biodiversity of Gaia, our living planet.
Michael Thompson, Dept of Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge.
This commentary is free to share under a Creative Commons license[/quote]
I wonder if this forum, or members fo teh forum, might like to rubbish this idea that this paper is of historic importance given that the data sets underlying the claims that global warming is occurring have been corrupted and rendered worthless by malpractice and the riggig of peer review etiquette. An opportunity for a challenge the RS establishment and make some headlines for them at their expense?

Further to John F. Hulquist’s FUBAR, is this little gem from the UK Telegraph, you really couldn’t make it up better than this:- (SNAFU also springs to mind.)http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6683770/GPs-should-offer-climate-change-advice-to-patients.html
I just hope that whilst they are examining me for whatever climate related clap-trap they think I might have (a cold, seasonal flu, a viral infection, you know, the sort of things that we have always suffered from & always will, only now they can atribute it to CC) that they frigging well get it right. However, I would prefer that they get the hospitals clean first, stop patients dying unnecessarily, stop giving our wounded troops MRSA (yes they really did many times), & generally improve the health care system first! The sickening rate of green infestation is amazing, Totalitarianism UK style I guess. Once noble & professional institutions debased, cheapened & brought down to the level of Micky-Mouse Disney World (no disrespect, Walt!) & nobody raises an eyebrow at it. All part of the government’s dumbing down programme of all insitutions that it has indulged in since June 1997, I expect! Colonials, et al, don’t even bother coming to the UK, I know we need the mighty dollar but this is ridiculous to the extreme. You’re next folks, trust me!

Terry Jackson is correct. Essentially, we’re arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
The problem for government in the developed world is how to be able to claim the moral legitimacy to use of force to compel subjects to behave “as required.” Religion / divine right of kings no longer cuts it, that’s been on the way out in the West since the Enlightenment. Nationalism doesn’t sit too well with the agenda of “globalization” and the formation of the European superstate, and un-controlled immigration from the Third World. So, science has to step up to the plate. It’s not the science that’s driving the politics, it’s the other way around, and it’s obvious to me why.
The AGW scam is immune to falsification because it’s not science, it’s a sophisticated method of social control. Even though “Watt’s Up With That?” is on the side with the truth, that’s entirely irrelevant to the issue.
All this should be obvious to anyone who reflects even momentarily. It’s kind of funny, in a perverse kind of way, that they couldn’t come up with anything better.

Another amazing find. That’s two or three data sets now down for the count? CRUTEM3. GISS worse that CRUTEM3. NCDC? What’s the fourth set?
Anthony I’m wondering if you or another already informed individual could do a piece (or link to one if it already exists) about the types and range of modifications to temperature sensor data are that are used in the science papers (assuming they are all known). Also what are “reasonable” and “valid” non-biased (towards any theory) modifications to data due to locations of temperature sensors or urbanization heat island effects.
Also I keep encountering scientists who I have conversations with who claim “there is mountains of evidence”. How much of this “mountain” is really a “mo-hill” since it’s based upon the alleged scientific work by Jones, Mann, et. al.? How many scientific papers must now be invalidated and redone?
Are there really any other lines of evidence other than the Jones, Mann, et. al. cabal? If so what are they and what’s good about them or bad about them?
Thanks for educating us. Keep up the awesome work.
pwl, http://www.PathsToKnowledge.NET.

He could equally have said CRUTEM3 is superior. Would that have been a shocker?
The base period can’t change the slope – it just shifts the numbers on the y axis. GISS is different in using 1951-80 because it was the only one developed before 1990, so couldn’t use 1961-90. Once a base period is settled, there’s no real reason to change it, and a lot of cost, since a lot of written and otherwise stored data will need correction.

“John Pate (01:39:11) :
Terry Jackson is correct. Essentially, we’re arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
The problem for government in the developed world is how to be able to claim the moral legitimacy to use of force to compel subjects to behave “as required.” Religion / divine right of kings no longer cuts it, that’s been on the way out in the West since the Enlightenment. Nationalism doesn’t sit too well with the agenda of “globalization” and the formation of the European superstate, and un-controlled immigration from the Third World. So, science has to step up to the plate. It’s not the science that’s driving the politics, it’s the other way around, and it’s obvious to me why.
The AGW scam is immune to falsification because it’s not science, it’s a sophisticated method of social control. Even though “Watt’s Up With That?” is on the side with the truth, that’s entirely irrelevant to the issue.
All this should be obvious to anyone who reflects even momentarily. It’s kind of funny, in a perverse kind of way, that they couldn’t come up with anything better.”
Well if people die, and they will, we may as well fight it. As I have said many times, there is only one way the “elite” will “get the message”. The French had the right idea.

Anthony, Steve M., I’m also wondering about tree rings. The tree ring data shows a “decline” that had to be “hidden” by the alleged scientists of Climategate.
What bothers me about the decline in the tree ring temperature proxy data is that it declined while the overlaid temperature data seems to not have declined.
Does this imply that the is not a linear or valid correlation between the tree ring temperature proxy data and temperature? It sure seems like it.
I mean it would seriously bother me that my proxy for temperature deviated from the readings from thermometers and did so by going downwards!
This decline in the tree ring data suggests that the tree ring temperature proxy data is NOT useful for accessing temperature histories.
In fact I’d even go further and wonder if this “decline” that was so important to “hide” with an overlay “trick” actually completely or substantially falsifies the entire notion of using tree ring data as proxies for temperature.
What does it mean to falsify something in science? When is there enough counter evidence to knock down a former hypothesis or even a respected theory? Einstein did it to Newton, and others are trying to do it to Einstein. What will it really take to knock down the alleged hypothesis of AGW for good?
Thanks again for educating us. Keep up the awesome work.
pwl, http://www.PathsToKnowledge.NET.
What’s up with that?
ps. When do you ever get any sleep? [:)]

sorry don’t know how to format this but here is the transcript of a mail I received from Hadley a while ago (doesn’t time fly?) when I was having an exchange with Gavin. It seems that careless use of language is endemic over there..! Sorry for the clumsy format:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for your email.
Your comment #221 in the RealClimate tread was in response to #218.
This particular thread was concerned with the observations of
temperature rise and not with the Hadley Centre climate model. The HC
climate model of course has polar amplification just as every other
climate model does.
The point was the interpolation of existing observational data over the
polar regions. If you look at the raw observations that GISS uses you
can see how little data they are basing an interpolation on. Regardless
of what they consider the correct spatial length scale for observations,
the Arctic sees large regional changes in temperature, which are being
glossed over with a large correlation length. The Had/CRU treatment of
the observations simply states that the error is greater due to lacking
data, something GISS are not honest about. There are no EXTRA
observations that GISS has access to, that Had/CRU does not. Thus there
is no reason to believe GISS’ observations vs Had/CRU observations of
recent global temperature rise when the errors are taken into account.
Kind Regards,
Sarah
Customer Centre, Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB,
United Kingdom. Tel: 0870 900 0100 Fax: 0870 900 5050 Email:enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk

Can someone please explain to me why Gavin Schmidt wont commit to stating whether climate is a chaotic system? I have asked him on several occasions and got really odd non-commital answers.
Maybe i am a completely daft layman, and i have wasted my time reading Gleicks book on chaos theory, as well as Gribbins “Complexity” and Davies “cosmic code”. All these books by well known scientists seem to imply climate should be treated as a chaotic system.
What i dont understand is that if Schmidt claims the jury is out on the underlying fundamnetals of the science of climate then how is it possible to come to such extreme conclusions?
PS: I am an agnostic on agw and i dont rule out but i certainly dont rule it in, and after hearing Gavin’s “we dont know” answer about whether the climate is chaotic it has reinforced my sceptism.
Am I missing something?

It makes you wonder when you take that whole CRU says they don’t have the raw data anymore since before Phil’s time with his feelings on GISS. By doing that it puts the onus on any investigators to prove when the data went awol and then they even helpfully pointed investigators to find raw data….somewhere else like GISS and Gavin, who might be going down anyway after the CEI lawsuit. To me it sounds like Phil and UEA is about to throw Gav under the bus. We know and probably so does Phil that Hansen is fruitier then a fruit cake. So why not try and toss all the crap on Hansen the scaremonger and his sidekick Gav?

John Pate (01:39:11) :
The AGW scam is immune to falsification because it’s not science, it’s a sophisticated method of social control. Even though “Watt’s Up With That?” is on the side with the truth, that’s entirely irrelevant to the issue.

Trouble is, as a method of social control, it just isn’t complicated enough.
The world in the 21st century is actually a world that’s something like, 25% 21st Century, 25% 18th Century, and 50% Dark Ages. Some people worry about finding a WiFI hotspot, some people worry about finding clean water. Some people worry about which city they want to live in, some people worry about which tribe they are part of. The material conditions have corresponding cultural conditions and minds and hearts.
When we get on a plane to fly from London to Sydney, you’re actually flying over great swathes of 18th Century and the Dark Ages along the way. Some places are even older. Some peoples worry about Gaia’s rights. Some people worry about human rights. Some people worry about their national supremacy. Some peoples worry about how their tribe will win over the other tribe, and resort to ethnic cleansing if necessary.
There is no politician alive today who knows solutions to dealing with this degree of social and economic complexity. That is the bad news about “welcoming diversity”. When you really look at what’s out there, it is horrifying. We live in a highly fragmented world of staggering complexity.
This is why even if global warming was 100% true it would be a bad idea to try to fix it with social policies. The unintended consequences from the fallout of trying to mess with the world’s complex cultures would likely be far worse.
Let people be at war with nature if they need to, but don’t encourage them to be at war with each other.

Gavin has said definitively in the comments on RC that the now famous “aladj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25..” line in the code (FOIA\documents\osborn-tree6\briffa_sep98_d.pro) is never used to create a graph that is published. If that is the case it should be noted when brought up (I have brought it up before as it seems like blatant data manipulation – but if it isn’t used anywhere then it isn’t and I take that back). Of course you can still read intentions etc into the chosen numbers, but that is pretty different than if that code generated a published graph and should be made clear.
I understand the code well enough, but I’m not familiar enough with the graphs and the history of them to know if it was ever used. Fwiw it does seem plausible based on the names of the files (there’s _c, _d, _e..). The graph title in the code is “Age-banded MXD from all sites” and later ‘Hugershoff-standardised MXD from all sites’.
His quote, and the link:
“[Response: Not at all. The ‘correction’ was calculated as the PC in an EOF decomposition of the divergence in the associated files (so it isn’t arbitrary). I understand that this was done in order to test the sensitivity of certain calculations to the presence or absence of the post 1960 ‘divergence’, but regardless of why it was done, it does not appear in any paper, nor does it impact any published data set. In no way can this be described as evidence for data manipulation in the sense you mean. This, like the junk that litters any researcher’s hard drive, is just one of those calculations that didn’t go anywhere or add anything particularly useful. That’s the thing with stolen files – they don’t come with context. – gavin]”http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=2036

Anthony, Steve, Jennifer Marohasy, Tom Quirk,
I found your article Comparing the Four Global Temperature Data Sets (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/19/comparing-the-four-global-temperature-data-sets) and I’m wondering how the comments from Phil Jones (et. al.) in the Climategate emails impact the four temperature data sets (GISS, CRU/Hadley, UAH, and RSS) and this earlier comparison article?
It sure seems amazing that both the CRU/Hadley and GISS surface temperature data sets have been so thoroughly compromised. If they are useless then wow. To me it sure looks like it’s bordering on negligence at best and at worst criminal since vast sums of money due to the political and economic policy shifts based upon these shaky data sets. Be that as it may…
Is it possible to save these two data sets from the corruption? Or has the data sets been so compromised that they are beyond saving even on life support? Should the plug be pulled on them?
It seems to me that ALL the papers published that use any of these “compromised” data sets need to be reviewed and potentially tossed into the dust bin of history of discarded science or corrected. How many papers is that?
Also where exactly can one obtain all of these data sets from? As a systems scientist with a specialty in computer science I’m interested in doing some experiments with the data myself.
Is there a resource that lists where each data set is located and what the problems with each data set are? Much like surface stations dot org maybe we need an open source site dedicated to to making available the latest and best Open Science Data and empowering people to produce analysis and programs to share. The data could be placed in a “source code” revision system that could show the differences between versions from the original sources as they are updated.
Thanks,
pwl, http://www.PathsToKnowledge.NET.

On a more serious note: I don’t feel optimistic about this at all. Many of the Political blogs I try to post on moderate out my comments with links about climategate. I’m too old to post flyers really but I’d be prepared to print out a hundred maybe and push them through every second letterbox.To me personally,I think the New Zealand book-cooking by Salinger and NIWA is the best and most easily understood evidence? Maybe Anthony or someone could come up with a good flyer layout? (This was asked for a few days ago by someone and I’m sure 10% of those here wouldn’t mind printing them up and walking a mile to post them.

Is there going to be warfare between CRU and GISS? Jones dissing Hansen and tossing James under the bus might erupt into a pissing match.

Here’s what’s going to happen:
(1) CRU will release a report on the email leak
(2) The mainstream media, who’re waiting for the spin and press releases, rather than doing any actual investigative journalism, will take the CRU marketing line
(3) Everything will be GO for the Racketeeringhagen conference
(4) Shares in Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Al Gore will rise post conference
(5) Post Racketeeringhagen, Lord Rees will release a report
(6) The mainstream media will publish and discuss the report (as they did with Stern), without doing any actual investigative journalism
(7) Apart from us freaks, the public still won’t give a [self-snip].

Nick Stokes (02:16:46) :
Given the amplitude of periodic climate change, only a base period of 1900-1990 can put it in context. 1961-90 is purely arbitrary, soin fact both timesets put a bias.
Its hardly as though there were no periods of warming and cooling prior to 1951

Anthony
I’d been preparing a page on the UK GISS records just before ClimateGate broke, and have now tidied it up. It seems this would be good to put out before Copenhagen. It might help the MSM here too. I’ve now got it online here. If you’d like to put it out but with tweaks, please email me, or just alter it yourself.

In the aftermath of the CRU email hack, many people have come to believe that scientists are unfairly restricting access to the raw data relating to the global rise in temperature. … We have set up a page of data links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions etc.”

An aside really but I can’t help being amused by the number of emails from this individual that contain the message that “I’ll be away at….” Fill in the blanks yourself. What’s the collective noun for profesors? Answer “An absence”.

Monday, November 30, 2009
London Times
Scientists at the University of East Anglia have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The Drudge Report has been all over this and now has a link to this London Times report.
Climate change data dumpedhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
So the CRU can no longer recreate their own data from the original source if we are to believe them. How unfortunate!
In all of this scandal Teflon Jim Hansen appears to be getting off scot-free. If the deep solar minimum continues as Livingston and Penn are suggesting and global temperatures continue to drop, Phil Jones will be left holding the bag and Jim Hansen will walk.
Michael Ronayne

Spot the contradiction
Phil Jones, Oct 6th 2009: “GISS is inferior to CRUTEM3”
Phile Jones, Nov 24th 2009: “Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for Nasa (GISS)…..”
An inferior product GISS tallies with CRUTEM3 ?????
So we can conclude that scientists working independently can come up with the same inferior products.
Not exactly a convincing arguement!

A relatively small number of individuals from varying disciplines got together in an immature area of science and misbehaved. They allowed imagination and personal ambition to supplant scientific judgement and they did not allow proper use of the scientific method to rein back their imaginings.
Due to their influential positions and the lack of a widely understood whole climate mechanism they were able to persuade many others in powerful positions that they had come across a devastating truth.
For a while it all looked plausible as the rise in CO2 levels coincidentally correlated with changing global temperatures. The facts and the science were never properly questioned because they controlled the peer review process and the immaturity of the science meant that adequately informed peer review was unavailable anyway.
They treated the laboriously collated raw data as a personal possession to be manipulated and discarded as suited their purposes.
Then it gradually became clear that temperatures were not changing as expected, that their models started to go awry immediately after every projection commenced and other explanations (especially oceanic) for the observed warming became more plausible. Furthermore the all important correlation evaporated.
The cost (both financial and in terms of a pointless loss of freedom) of the solutions they proposed became clearer in a world already facing a financial meltdown for other reasons.
The uselessness of the proposed measures in the face of natural forcings also became more apparent with it becoming obvious that without substantial technical advances relating to alternative energy sources the targets were wholly unrealistic.
The entire concept is now in the process of falling apart and it is becoming clear that to have proceeded as proposed would have hindered and not helped the undeniably necessary moves towards proper long term solutions for resource depletion, overpopulation and genuine pollution.
The loss of confidence in science generally has become profound and is unlikely to be overcome on a timescale of less than decades.
The longer the culprits struggle the longer it will take and the worse the consequences will be.

Julian in Wales (01:34:25) :
I do hope then that those noble & respected members of the RS include that wonderful letter from the then President of the RS, to the Lords of the Admiralty about his concern, & interest, of the new found warmth in the Arctic Circle, dated 1817 I believe. Sorry don’t have a link to it!

I reckon it’s “in an odd way, cheering news” that despite John Daly’s sudden passing, he continues to be a thorn in the side of the AGW Religionists including the likes of Phil Jones at CRU. I remember John from the pre-www days of FIDOnet and the GTNET_SCIENCE “echo” (forum) where although we butted heads on the topics of origins and uniformitarianism, I agreed with him when it came to the topic of AGW … though that phrase wasn’t the fashion back then.
Today I went through some of my archives from those heady days of FIDOnet and found a number of publicly sent messages to/from John. For those interested they can be viewed a couple of posts back in the following forum found here: http://forum.behindbigbrother.com/showthread.php?t=41233
Of more interest may be his 1990 document he distributed via FIDOnet. It is called “Update on Greenhouse Effect” and I’ve uploaded it to google docs. If you take a copy, please honour his copyright requests given at the beginning.
The link is: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhbbzft5_0g8w26ncd
The ascii graphs unfortunately don’t translate well to non fixed width fonts, but unlike with what Phil and the rest of the CRU crew produced, I doubt if there is any “tricking” or “hiding of declines” going on. 🙂
regarDS

Anthony, OT but
I could not believe when I read this in the Brazilian media:
Google translationhttp://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ciencia/fe3011200905.htm
Cold atypical surprised scientists in Antarctica
Summer sea ice has accumulated and snow in the most tepid of the continent, which in 2009 had the coldest winter in 18 years
Researchers even claim that the area where Brazil is science goes through cooling, in other areas, the thaw continues
Edward Knapp / Folha Imagem
Comandante Ferraz, semicoberta snow
EDUARDO GERAQUE
A SPECIAL ENVOY ANTARCTICA
Sunday was snow in the bay of the Admiralty. The strong wind made waves form at sea. The view from the windows of the Brazilian station Comandante Ferraz is blocked by the accumulation of more than two meters of snow. At the bottom of the bay, much of the sea remains frozen.
The experts look at the calendar and are surprised. This time, summer in the southern hemisphere, it is common that there is more snow in front of the station.
Who gives support for the printing of the Antarctic Research and Heber Steps, himself a veteran of King George Island, home to the Brazilian Antarctic station.
Coach INPE (National Institute for Space Research) lives in a separate module of the base, on top of a nearby mountain. There, he records everything on the weather conditions throughout the area.
The graphs that arise in computer proving a harsh winter. The month of August, for example, had at least 25.6 C and mean negative -9 C. Just over 1991, when the station controlled by the space agency, operating for 23 years, scored -28.5 C and average minimum temperature of -11.3 C.
In recent days, in November, the temperature was around 0C, with wind chill of-13C at times.
Less important than the record year of thermometers, with Steps, is the cycle of winters. “Before they were less frequently [every four years or so], now had a 2007 and another in 2009,” he says.
For events such as registered on the Brazilian station, is that other researchers Antarctic Brazil do not like the term global warming.
They prefer to talk about climate variations. At least where is station Comandante Ferraz and in the northwest of the Antarctic Peninsula, the more correct term is for “global cooling”, even scientists unable to explain why it is occurring.
In accordance with the steps, not just the Brazilian data pointing toward a more cold. The accumulation of snow is felt by other nearby stations, such as the Chilean President Frei.
In the east and south, however, the ice loss continues, and strong rhythm, show other studies in the region.
“They may be two sides of the same coin,” considering the technical INPE.
Outside, research groups at work in this Antarctic summer feel in their daily work the weather changed. Whether because of the absence of the animals that they usually consider this time of year, either by technical problems that the snow often causes.
In the case of birds this time of year, scientists expect to find nests of skuas and terns, for example, in the nearby beaches. But the early days of research are being played at a slow pace. Because of the large accumulation of ice, say, the animals have not built their nests.
The problem for the group of fish is technical. The ice still holds the boat’s research station in Brazil. Without it, the shift is difficult.
Within Ferraz, the snow out of hours also makes sequels. The two lakes of water supply of the complex are frozen. Bath only once a day, preferably fast. Machine, for instance, is prohibited by the station.

Obviously, we can’t say which series is better, Hadcrut, GISS or the NCDC.
As far as we can tell, they are all exaggerated and don’t reflect the actual temperature history. It might not be a significant amount but it could also be the majority of the increase. Its just that nobody can tell right now.

There is a danger that we are placing too much emphasis on possible mischievous massaging in regard to trend exaggeration of late C20th temperature rise, without emphasising the more important fundamental weaknesses in CO2 theory itself and the inherent attitude of academic arrogance resulting in the disgraceful suppression of alternate natural processes theory, primarily solar linked.
I would urge everyone who has not viewed the Svensmark documentary, for example, which in my view superbly documents these frustrations, and in my opinion it is absolutely tragic that viewings of this on You tube are so few.
The Svensmark documentary can be found in Youtube by searching for ‘Henrik Svensmark on Global Warming’ and is in 5 parts. Please watch this, it is very powerful in explaining the systemic rot that has infected science.

@Mattb:
You wrote, “But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?”
Yes, we know they’re corrupt. And their private emails are truthful – in contrast to their public lies. When Phil Jones says he wants to “hide the decline” he means it, just as he means it when he says the GISS data isn’t very good. So yes, “Phil’s opinion” is suitable when he’s telling the truth in private.
You exhibit the same fallacious “logic” that the global warmists do.

Anthony,
The dataset produced by the leaked code is CRU TS – this is a high resolution dataset with no adjustments for UHI. It appears to be used for environmental modelling and validation of climate models.
The CRUTEM dataset is a lower resolution dataset has been adjusted for UHI and is used to create the HadCRUT series.
I hope you will update you post to make this distinction clear.

O.T. but no one should miss this from the business pages of the UK Daily Telegaph. See what happens in a carbon trading block and to whom the already incredible profits of this as yet nascent market accrue!
And where you may ask does this money come from? Well, in the UK it comes from a levy of 9% on the price per unit of gas, electricity etc which is not itemised but hidden in the unit cost prior to it’s multiplication by the unit usage number.
Here in the UK we are already factored in by law to an incease of this by 1% per annum for the next eleven years. No prizes for guessing where most of that impost will end up if you read the Telegaph article.
This is why nations with no Carbon Trading regime at present should fight tooth and nail against it’s imposition.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/6686057/European-Climate-Exchange-chief-Patrick-Birley-defends-the-carbon-trading-system.html

I’m afraid I must agree with Mattb (23:53:57) :
“But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?”
Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in awhile. When he does, Farmer Brown does not rush into print with the “shocking” news of that accomplishment.
CH

“They also impose some urbanization adjustment which is based on population/night lights which I don’t think is very good.”
Better than nothing at all, which is what Jones does. However nightlight adjustment is just for the US. The rest of the GISS urban adjustments are VERY fishy.
However, let’s take Jone’s assertion at face value:
“I think you can say that GISS is inferior to CRUTEM3.”
So let’s see what that means:http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/cherry-pick_fig2.JPG
Of the Surface datasets, ONLY Hadley/CRU shows no warming for twelve years. If they are the best dataset, which Jones believes apparently, then the last twelve years of no warming pretty much blows the models out of the water.

I’m finding this whole MSM la-la-can’t-hear-you really quite sinister now.
I assumed it was caution – the BBC in particular as notorious for hanging back and then reporting on what some other outlet has said.
But we’re what 10 days in and I tripped across an article in Pravda that it was more informative than anything I’ve seen on the BBC’s own website. It even had a right rant at the end about how outrageous it all was.
I know it’s not the journal it once was but it’s very strange that Russian cable TV and websites are giving it more coverage…
I stuck in on my blog if you want to read it.

There’s more shocking (well not really shocking so much as appalling) earlier in the exchanges. At the same page Anthony links to, we find this gem from Jones, also:
“Phil Jones wrote:
Tom,
I don’t think AR4 (Ch 3) went into the TLT/surface amplification issue. You can get the pdf of the chapter from here [1]http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html . This amplification issue is only addressed in some recent papers – mainly Ben’s. The timescale argument is quite convincing. It is a pity that there is only Pinatubo that you can test it on. El Chichon ought to work but it is confused by ENSO. Does the amplification work well for the 1997/98 El Nino? Did you pick up that Thompson et al paper due out in J. Climate soon? Factoring out ENSO and volcanoes might help in isolating this.
[2]http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/faculty/thompson.php
where there is a link to the paper and also the data
[3]http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/~davet/ThompsonWallaceJonesKennedy/
It seems as though you can get all the extraction parts. No need for the dynamic bit. Anyway my thought is as Pinatubo gives the amplification then ENSO ought to as well. A thought might be to take Dave Thompson’s ENSO and volcanic subtraction series, then scale them by thermodynamic theory value then subtract these from RSS and UAH. Small issue of base periods to sort out and assume there is no lag. Need to do this with NCDC surface as well – have to use Dave T’s numbers here. This can’t do the 20N-20S – just the globe. It would of course, at this and any other time, be very nice to show that UAH is wrong. A couple of minor things in the paper- the amplification should work for a cooling as well – not just warming trends? In Fig 5 in your legend LOUAH should be UAHLO. This is in Fig 4 as well. By the way – meant to add this to the earlier email. NCDC ERSST3 side does talk about missing data, so any of this would mean the (NH+SH)/2 won’t equal the global average that NCDC calculate. I recall you asking about GISS. One thing I have learned about GISS is that they have a cut off date of the 8th of each month. After this date nothing is changed for the previous month and nothing earlier either. This means they never incorporate any back data and they don’t get the second tranche of CLIMAT data which comes about the 16th of the following month. Countries like Paraguay and Bolivia mostly come in this way, plus some in Africa. I’ll see Tom Peterson later in the week. I’ll ask him about their cut offs. I think they don’t change a month later. This won’t lose you much data though. It was Tom who told me about the data they can’t use.
Cheers
Phil”

…meanwhile, back at the camp, the sun lingers on… with Zero sunspots…
WUWT has had a very rapid 5 million hits over the last few weeks but good ol’ Sol keeps on rollin’ along…
A welcome to all the newcomers here, and may I extend my gratitide, on behalf of all, to our gracious host, Anthony “The Reverend” Watts and his superb “Team” of moderators.

‘Fantasist, self-publicist and Walter Mitty character’.These and many other labels could never be attached to Lord Monckton.As Gore’s a wrong-un,the next best thing is to have Ronald McDonald as a sceptic figurehead.

“after hearing Gavin’s “we dont know” answer about whether the climate is chaotic it has reinforced my sceptism.”
———————————————–
Is this what they really mean by scientific consensus? I mean, if they don’t know if the climate really is a chaotic system or not? How the heck can they know anything about it for sure? So is there now consensus that they do not know, so they need the research grants to keep rolling in?

Plato,
The coverage from the BBC has been pathetically weak. However they will still say that they have covered crugate, which is true BUT when you look at the coverage its pretty rubbish.
One would think that with a near £4billion budget that the BBC would have the resources at its disposal to look extremely deeply in to crugate…well that is until one realises that the BBC has invested significant amounts of time and effort in to pushing global warming ™.
For me, I believe the real issue here is that so many people and so many organisations have invested so much time, effort and money in to global warming ™ that something as inconvenient as this leak will not stop them getting their “fair world government” in place!
After all, to the left…the Wests power and wealth is disgusting. So anything to rectify this balance is fair game…its just that these lefties have cottoned on to global warming as their vehicle to achieve this new “fair” system of wealth distribution.
Mailman

jones is not talking about the 1951-1990 base period and the fact that it differs from the 60-90. he is talking about the combining process of smaller segments into longer segments. The reference station method ( easterling I recall ) of NCDC.
Jones and brohan require that a station have data during their base period ( 60-90) which is WHY in other mails jones fights against changing this period to something more modern

Bob Tisdale (01:11:59) :
tallbloke: I find the end of the third sentence in the quote to be the most telling part of Jones’s argument. “They also impose some urbanization adjustment which is based on population/night lights WHICH I DON’T THINK IS VERY GOOD.” Is this climate science at its best”
It is about feelings. Don’t hold them back or supress them.
It must not be about facts or data.
Joe Romm uses an expression. anti-science
That fits here.

@Mattb:
You wrote, “But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?”
———————————————–
Just because CRU is better than GISS, does not make CRU any good. It just creates the possiblity that the CRU data, albeit appallingly bad, is nonetheless, better than a truly atrocious set of data from GISS.
IF the GISS data really is, as Jones states, worse than CRU, then the GISS data must be utterly useless.
This climategate really is the gift that just keeps on giving. I don’t need Christmas presents after all this 😀

Regarding the allegedly dumped data, couldn’t a FOIA be filed to get a copy of all the related paperwork authorizing the destruction of this key data? If they can’t show paperwork from the time that authorized this destruction of one of their crown jewels that would point to them lying about it being destroyed in the 1980s due to the move, while on the other hand if they do present docs, those could be forgeries.

One climatologist I am in touch with and who is defending CRU, asserts that
CRU was not the repository for the data they destroyed, and that they did not in fact disappear irreplaceable data.
Is there any evidence of this either way?

I still think some people are expecting unreasonable speed from the MSM. If you want to write a story, rather than just an *alleged* story, you need to file FOI requests and obtain the original information, then follow the paper trail. That’s probably going to take at least a month. Much longer if the institution tries to stonewall.
I expect in the future there will probably be some documentaries covering the issue, like a follow up to the “Great Global Warming Swindle” for instance.

A little OT, and Anthony is probably already on this, but here’s UNEP’s plan for the future of us all. A plan for world government based around environmental laws, etc. I think it’s almost soup.
A couple excerpts follow.
—new environmental rules, regulations and standards, and the linking of existing environmental agreements, in a stronger global lattice-work of environmental law, with stronger authority to command national governments. The Swiss paper calls it a series of “ambitious yet incremental adjustments” to international environmental governance. Indeed, the document says, UNEP’s “role is to ‘tee up’ the next generation of such rules.”
—an extensive propagandizing role for UNEP that reaches beyond its member governments and traditional environmental institutions to “children and youth” as well as business and political groups, to support UNEP strategic objectives.
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577827,00.html

What needs to be done here is to have an independent comparison of the analysis methods used by the three major players that report monthly “global temperature” metrics (CRU, NOAA, GISS). The assumption is that they all start with essentially the same “raw” data. The adjustments that are performed would differ depending on the particular group’s analysis. We know what GISS does (vis GISTEMP), and we know it is bad (see E.M. Smith’s extensive analysis of GISTEMP’s methods at http://chiefio.wordpress.com/). NOAA (via NCDC) won’t release their methods software (source code), and I’m not sure what has been released from CRU.

One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980.
That is probably the best choice, because temperature was relatively stable from 1950-1980.

I’m going to stick my neck out defend the guys who produced those long-term climate records. As I understand it they use three different approaches:
– CRU tries to use a sub-set of stations (c 4000) with long records.
– NCDC uses a larger number of stations (c 7000), some of which have shorter records, to estimate grid temperatures.
– GISS also uses a large number of records but works on difference over time, assuming that stations in or close a particular grid will all warm or cool at a similar rate.
If these three methods give similar results for underlying trends that in itself gives the results a degree of confidence.
Most climate data currently used comes via a system operated under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organisation. Because of their need for consistent long records the CRU asked for and obtained additional data directly from meteorological services. It is a fact, regrettable but true, that many Met services charge for data and under these circumstances it is logical they would place an embargo on onward transmission of data.
As anyone who has worked with long-term climate records knows (and I have done this in more than 30 countries in 4 continents) it is very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. You do double-mass plots, inter-station correlation (to detect unreported infilling), sometimes you can access metadata, but it is never easy. It is possible that that if the CRU or others found data which gave the results they expected they checked less carefully than if results were unexpected. It is possible that their methods of allowing for the heat island effect were deficient. But we should at least recognise that they did a necessary, unglamorous and often thankless task and try to build on what they have done rather than rubbish it.

“They also impose some urbanization adjustment which is based on population/night lights”
This seems to be refering to GISTemp but they say:http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
“The GHCN/USHCN/SCAR data are modified in two steps to obtain station data from which our tables, graphs, and maps are constructed. In step 1, if there are multiple records at a given location, these are combined into one record; in step 2, the urban and peri-urban (i.e., other than rural) stations are adjusted so that their long-term trend matches that of the mean of neighboring rural stations. Urban stations without nearby rural stations are dropped.”
No mention of population/night lights.
Which is right, or was he not refering to GISS?
Also UHI is not I think just a long-term trend issue, it is a diurnal issue and seasonal issue. If the data is used to determine day/night changes, i.e nights warming faster/slower than days, or winter/summer changes, winters warming faster/slower than summers then perhaps it is best just to drop the urban/peri-urban stations altogether.
I sometimes wonder if weather stations tend to be positioned in places that are going to have troubled future temperatures. Perhaps we should cluster around them to keep warm.
I cannot see anyway of properly accounting for station-drift, whether it is UHI, the paint-peeling off, or any other cause. Sudden changes, new equipment, resiting, etc., should show up as jumps in the record and they can be looked for, but even so it might be better to just say that the records should be dealt with as two seperate weather stations. Really long term records are critical to preserving the low frequency components (long-term trends) but they need to be free of any discontinuities or drifts. Just because a record has been kept at a particular site for 100 years does not necessarily mean that it is free from discontinuities and can be treated as a continuous record.
A point for much debate occurs when stations are corrected for drift, discontinuities and perhaps both. How should this be done? Are discontinuties corrected because they are apparent from the data or because the station history documents a change in the station/environment? I don’t know what criteria they use. When is a drift a drift not a trend? It is a nightmare.
More to the point, I would think that given some of the known problems, it should be able to predict from the mix of various different lengths of weather station record just how much low frequency information is likley to be reliably maintained. My guess would be that it would be shorter than the length of the longest records and perhaps much shorter. That would imply that the recovered long-term trend should be viewed with much caution.
Perhaps this would not be a bad thing, in fact it might be a good thing. A lot of the well publicised verification of the models relates to their ability to account for the low frequency component of the recovered temperature record. It might be better to assume that the historic long-term trend is very uncertain and validate the models on how well they account for the wiggles like the 1910s-1940s wiggle, the 1940s-1970s wiggle, the 1970s-1990s wiggle and the current 2000s wiggle. I think we know that they are not too hot on the 1910s-1940s wiggle, and suspicion is mounting on the 2000s wiggle. I believe that we can have more confidence in the record on a decadal basis than on a centenial one, so perhaps that is a better test of the models overall performance than just getting the trend right. Even the simplest of models can get the trend right given a view basic assumptions. Or by regressions against known factors.
Obviously some short term events like volcanoes do cause the models to move in the correct general directions and they should match the record quite well on those (perhaps better than they actually do), but as I said they do seem to struggle to account for the 1910s-1940s warming. Here I refer to GCMs, simpler models can fare better, you just have to multiply the effect of TSI by a large factor. AFAIAA only simple models with high values of PDO effect match the 2000s wiggle, but as of yet it is probably too short a discepancy to be very damning.
If there has been any tuning of the models to get the trend right they may have made themselves hostages to fortune, simply because the recovered record is subject to revision and more importantly may simply be wrong. If they have been tuned to an incorrect trend then they are likley to diverge quite badly as the decades pass, or they will have to be retuned.
I am not saying that they do tune the models deliberately or even unintentionally just that it might be safer to focus on how well they get the more evidentially sound wiggles right rather than the trend.
Alex

More Giss v Hadleyhttp://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=926&filename=1224176459.txt
From: Michael Mann
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: Why are the temperature data from Hadley different from NASA?
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:00:59 -0400
Cc: Judith Lean , Yousif K Kharaka
thanks Phil–this all makes sense. I’ll be intrigued to hear more about how the melting sea ice issue is going to be dealt with. no question there is a lot of warming going on up
there.
hope to see you one of these days,
mike
On Oct 16, 2008, at 6:52 AM, Phil Jones wrote:
Hi Mike, Judith and Yousif,
Mike has basically answered the question. The GISS group average surface T data into 80 equal area boxes across the world. The UK group (CRU/MOHC) grid the data into 5 by 5 degree lat/long boxes, as does NCDC. These griddings don’t allow so much extrapolation of data – no extrapolation beyond the small grid box. The US groups also calculate the globe as one domain, whereas we in the UK use (NH+SH)/2. This also makes some difference as most of the missing areas are in the SH, and currently the NH is warmer than the SH with respect to 1961-90. Our rationale for doing what we do is that it is better to estimate the missing areas of the SH (which we do by tacitly assuming they are the average of the rest of the SH) from the rest of the SH as opposed to the rest of the world.
The Arctic is a problem now. With less sea ice, we are getting SST data in for regions for which we have no 1961-90 averages – because it used to sea ice (so had no measurements).
We are not using any of the SST from the central Arctic in summer.
So we are probably underestimating temperatures in the recent few years. We’re working on what we can do about this. There are also more general SST issues in recent years. In 1990, for example, almost all SST values came from ships. By 2000 there were about 20% from Buoys and Drifters, but by 2008 this percentage is about 85%. We’re also doing comparisons of the drifters with the ships where both are plentiful, as it is likely that drifters measure a tenth of one degree C cooler than ships, and the 1961-90 period is ship-based average.
New version of the dataset coming in summer 2009.
All the skeptics look at the land data to explain differences between datasets and say urbanization is responsible for some or all of the warming. The real problem is the marine data at the moment.
Attaching a recent paper on urbanization and effects in China.
Cheers
Phil
At 22:08 15/10/2008, Michael Mann wrote:
Hi Judith,
Its nice to hear from you, been too long (several years??). My understanding is that the differences arise largely from how missing data are dealt with. For example, in Jim et al’s record the sparse available arctic data are interpolated over large regions, whereas Phil an co. either use the available samples or in other versions (e.g. Brohan et al) use optimal interpolation techniques. The bottom line is that Hansen et al ‘j05 I believe weights the high-latitude warming quite a bit more, which is why he gets a warmer ’05, while Phil and co find ’98 to be warmer.
But Phil can certainly provide a more informed and complete answer!
mike
p.s. see you at AGU this year??
On Oct 15, 2008, at 5:03 PM, Judith Lean wrote:
Hi Yousif,
Many apologies for not replying sooner to your email – but I’ve only just returned from travel and am still catching up with email.
Unfortunately, I am simply a “user” of the surface temperature data record and not an expert at all, so cannot help you understand the specific issues of the analysis of the various stations that produce the differences that you identify. I too would like to know the reason for the differences.
Fortunately, there are experts who can tell us, and I am copying this email to Mike Mann and Phil Jones who are such experts.
Mike and Phil (hi! hope you are both well!), can you please, please help us to
understand these differences that Yousif points out in the GISS and Hadley Center surface temperature records (see two attached articles).
Many thanks, for even a brief answer, or some reference.
Judith
On Oct 8, 2008, at 1:50 PM, Yousif K Kharaka wrote:
Judith:
I hope you are doing well (these days OK would be good!) at work and personally. Can you help me to understand the huge discrepancy (see below) between the temperature data from the Hadley Center and GISS? Any simple explanations, or references that I can read on this topic? I certainly would appreciate your help on this.
Best regards. Yousif Kharaka
Yousif Kharaka, Research Geochemist Phone: (650) 329-4535
U. S. Geological Survey, MS 427 Fax: (650) 329-4538
345, Middlefield Road Mail: [1]ykharaka@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
—– Forwarded by Yousif K Kharaka/WRD/USGS/DOI on 10/08/2008 10:42 AM —–
Yousif K Kharaka/WRD/USGS/DOI
10/06/2008 02:07 PM
To “Dr David Jenkins”
Subject
Why are the temperature data from Hadley different from NASA? [18]Link
David and all:
One advantage (or great disadvantage if you are very busy!) of membership in GCCC is that you are forced to investigate topics outside your areas of expertise. For some time now, I have been puzzled as to why global temperature data from the British Hadley Centre are different from those reported by NASA GISS, especially in the last 10 years.
GISS reports that 2005 was the warmest year (see first attachment) on record, and that 2007 tied 1998 for the second place. The Hadley group continues reporting 1998 (a strong El Nino year) as having the highest global temperature, and then showing temperature decreases thereafter. The two groups report their temperatures relative to different time intervals (1951-1980 for GISS; 1961-1990 for Hadley), but much more important is
the fact that GISS data include temperatures from the heating Arctic that are excluded by others (see second attachment). If you are interested in the topic of sun spots, the 11-year irradiance cycle, and solar forcing versus AGHGs, see the first attachment for what NASA has to say. We may need help on this complex topic from a “true climate scientists”, such as Judith Lean!
Cheers. Yousif Kharaka
Yousif Kharaka, Research Geochemist Phone: (650) 329-4535
U. S. Geological Survey, MS 427 Fax: (650) 329-4538
345, Middlefield Road Mail: [19]ykharaka@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Menlo Park, California 94025, USA

On a different tack, when judging how well the datasets compare it might be better to concentrate regionally and on the land.
The ocean record is the biggest influence on the global record and three of the datasets seem to rely either heavily (2) or to some degree(1) on Hadley datasets. Also there is a shared data between the satellite record and at least one of the established datasets which makes validation to the satellite record a bit dubious.
Perhaps it would be better to concentrate on why they are different at all, than marvelling at how closely they correspond.
Alex

When you strip away all the methodologies of anomaly calculations. conflicting graphs and overblown projections of runaway extrapolation, we are left with the notion of measurable global temp rise (within instrument limitations and type) and baseline CO2 as the normal.
Using 280ppm and 15C, neither of which is certain for the longterm average, the road to the finish line has become quite narrow; we must go off the edge to make a U-turn.

Last weekend when Climategate broke I checked the domain “climategate.co.uk” and it was available. I thought about registering it for £2.99 – which is what it would have cost, but then changed my mind and didn’t bother!
I notice it has now been registered on 24-nov-09, here is the look up for it http://whois.domaintools.com/climategate.co.uk and it looks like they got it just to put it up for sale under Sedo! http://www.climategate.co.uk/
Always someone out to make a packet!

Which normal to use? the one that shows more warming of course…..http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=462&filename=1105019698.txt
At 09:22 05/01/2005, Parker, David (Met Office) wrote:
There is a preference in the atmospheric observations chapter of IPCC
AR4 to stay with the 1961-1990 normals. This is partly because a change
of normals confuses users, e.g. anomalies will seem less positive than
before if we change to newer normals, so the impression of global
warming will be muted.

That doesn’t sound like Jo writing to me. It’s more than likely been written by a Warmist spin-doctor and passed to her for publication. It completely ignores the issue.
I would love to show proof, but I’m pretty sure the emails will have been deleted.

Need some help.
One of the WUWT items included a brief statement which was an very short, but a very excellent list of the punch points of Climate Gate. I believe it was written by an Australian Professor from the University of Western…
Since I don’t recall his name at the moment (sorry) or the University,
I am having trouble finding that very well put quote. I believe it may have
originally been in a comment section, but WUWT singled it out in one of
their reports – perhaps at the bottom as an “oh by the way, you might like this” sort of thing. Well, yes, I did like it and I would like to see it again.
If someone has it, would you please repost it. Perhaps the Moderators could add it into the bottom of another report as well. In my humble opinion, it
was very short, but filled with punch, as it listed major problems that
are being uncovered by ClimateGate.
Thank you

Not sure where you want links now.
This in Fox News today could possibly cause a Beatles-like backlash, when the Beatles created a row by saying they were more popular than JC. Cannot recall.
Glad they revealed this though!http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577827,00.html
Document Reveals U.N.’s Goal of Becoming Rule-Maker in Global Environmental Talks
Monday, November 30, 2009
By George Russell
Environmentalism should be regarded on the same level with religion “as the only compelling, value-based narrative available to humanity,” according to a paper written two years ago to influence the future strategy of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the world’s would-be environmental watchdog.

SteveS (03:12:58) :
“On a more serious note: I don’t feel optimistic about this at all.”
Give it time. The Team has made many enemies in their field. (For instance, that guy Karlen from Scandanavia who got brushed off by T____.) They have been waiting for an opportune moment to strike back and be heard. Now they have it. As some of them speak up, others will be encouraged to come forward. And the strength of their condemnation of the IPCC and the Team will rise, and lots more dirty linen will be aired. It’ll develop along the lines of Watergate, with the public getting hooked on their weekly scandal, and the defenders in the bunker getting more and more implausible and desperate.
As that happens, the media will be more inclined to pay attention to them. There will be articles exploring, with the aid of graphics, the links (remember that word?) between the Team, the IPCC, and the various gatekeepers in the field. There may even be articles exploring topics like, “What is climate science all about anyway?”
A tectonic shift is underway. The media’s current silence is an indication that they are re-assessing the situation, and that their treatment in the future will be less outrageous. Even if you don’t grant them any sense of fairness at all, which is silly, you should realize that they have to be concerned about not alienating the skeptical portyion of their readership too badly, now that noticeable segments of it are sounding off in their online comments sections. Previously, they were only getting badgered by the enviros, whenever they failed to toe the line. Now, the forces on the contrarians side are coalescing, mainly thanks to internet sites like this, and making their impact felt.

Oops—when I wrote, “As that happens, the media will be more inclined to pay attention to them,” I was referring to the emerging voices of dissent, not to the beleaguered boffins in the bunker.
DISSENTERS!!! DIOXIDE DISSENTERS!! That’s a D-word we can live with! How about it, gang?

pwl (02:30:12) : “This decline in the tree ring data suggests that the tree ring temperature proxy data is NOT useful for accessing temperature histories.”
That was exactly what I thought when I read about the discrepancy. No one (with any scientific authority) has yet commented on your valid question.

Ron, thanks for speaking out. No doubt it was not easy. I hear what you are saying. Many records had to be paid for. Many records already had problems. It is a laborious and thankless task.
However, against that, which I can agree with, I have to set other issues. (1) the records about such an important issue have got to be in the public domain, in a form where they can be checked. Government can and should fund costs and should have been asked to do so. (2) there are already enough GISS records in the public domain that give the lie to unnatural global warming if you use them intelligently. Have a look at this brilliant, simple video on UHI that compares pairs of neighbouring US GISS records, one rural, one urban. A project a schoolchild could do! Have a look too at John Daly What the Stations Say – almost all GISS records.

Stephen Wilde (04:24:55) :
“A relatively small number of individuals from varying disciplines got together in an immature area of science and misbehaved. They allowed imagination and personal ambition to supplant scientific judgement and they did not allow proper use of the scientific method to rein back their imaginings.
“………………….”Magisterial! Anthony, please post his whole comment as an article. And please tell the media they can quote the whole thing freely.

When the media money strings realize they can’t sell thier AGW stories any more, the gears will shift to leveling broadsides at the sinking ship of Climate Change.
Alexander Harvey (09:21:48) :
There is plenty of raw instrumental readings in the US and elsewhere that can be dug up to get a near 150 yr. record. Climate is quite regional, and keeping the record regional can help greatly in identifying when many regions acted sympathy, instead of in opposition.

Bill Radcliffe (04:03:50) :
An aside really but I can’t help being amused by the number of emails from this individual that contain the message that “I’ll be away at….” Fill in the blanks yourself. What’s the collective noun for profesors? Answer “An absence”.
Gee, non-PC me thought Answer: “An Abcess.”
Present company excluded of course.

Incidently, arguing that any particular series is probably better on the basis of what we now about glaciers or solar output is flaky indeed. Glacier mass balance is driven by the difference mainly in winter accumulation and summer ablation , filtered in a complex non-linear way to give variously lagged tongue advance/retreat .Simple inference on the precidence of modern day snout positions does not translate easily into absolute (or relative) temperature levels now or in the past.
I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don’t have a lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at least a significant number of tree proxies ) some unexpected changes in response that do not match the recent warming.
A proxy diagram of temperature change is a clear favourite for the Policy Makers summary. But the current diagram with the tree ring only data somewhat contradicts the multiproxy curve and dilutes the message rather significantly. We want the truth. [!] Mike thinks it lies nearer his result (which seems in accord with what we know about worldwide mountain glaciers and, less clearly, suspect about solar variations).http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=136&filename=938018124.txt

I believe strongly that the strength in our discussion will be the fact that certain key features of past climate estimates are robust among a number of quasi-independent and truly independent estimates, each of which is not without its own limitations and potential biases. And I certainly don’t want to abuse my lead authorship by advocating my own work.
I am perfectly amenable to keeping Keith’s series in the plot, and can ask Ian Macadam (Chris?) to add it to the plot he has been preparing (nobody liked my own color/plotting conventions so I’ve given up doing this myself). The key thing is making sure the series are vertically aligned in a reasonable way. I had been using the entire 20th century, but in the case of Keith’s, we need to align the first half of the 20th century w/ the corresponding mean values of the other series, due to the late 20th century decline.
So if Chris and Tom (?) are ok with this, I would be happy to add Keith’s series. That having been said, it does raise a conundrum: We demonstrate (through comparining an exatropical averaging of our nothern hemisphere patterns with Phil’s more extratropical series) that the major discrepancies between Phil’s and our series can be explained in terms of spatial sampling/latitudinal emphasis (seasonality seems to be secondary here, but probably explains much of the residual differences). But that
explanation certainly can’t rectify why Keith’s series, which has similar seasonality
*and* latitudinal emphasis to Phil’s series, differs in large part in exactly the opposite direction that Phil’s does from ours. This is the problem we all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably concensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series.
So, if we show Keith’s series in this plot, we have to comment that “something else” is responsible for the discrepancies in this case. Perhaps Keith can help us out a bit by explaining the processing that went into the series and the potential factors that might lead to it being “warmer” than the Jones et al and Mann et al series?? We would need to put in a few words in this regard. Otherwise, the skeptics have an field day casting doubt on our ability to understand the factors that influence these estimates and, thus, can undermine faith in the paleoestimates. I don’t think that
doubt is scientifically justified, and I’d hate to be the one to have to give it fodder!http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=136&filename=938018124.txt

“” Carrick (07:54:22) :
One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980.
That is probably the best choice, because temperature was relatively stable from 1950-1980.””
That hasn’t always been the case, if you find an article from 20 years ago with the average temperature anomaly plotted you would see a drop of ~0.2C between 1950 and 1980.

Lucy from your web site: VJones inspired me to look into the UK records more closely. She says “We’re up against 0.6 deg warming/Century. If we can reduce that to 0.3 degrees, it is not ‘unprecedented’. I believe removing only a few real howlers, can have a dramatic effect. Look at Gardermoen: 3.73 degrees/century. There are sites like that one all over. ….
Do you not see that this statement is exactly what you accuse GISS CRU Pen Haddow of. You state that your aim is to prove that warmingh is .3degC/C . You are starting from a position of bias! – Not scientific

hunter (7:59:24) :
As with many who are trying to whitewash this affair , n g relys entirely on the emails , and concentrates on the more innocuous ones . While the emails , especially the ones he has purportedly read , make no out and out admissions what they imply is pretty serious . What is more damaging are the Harry files , which most op-ed types have thus far ignored .
Curiousgeorge – Goldwater was right .

That hasn’t always been the case, if you find an article from 20 years ago with the average temperature anomaly plotted you would see a drop of ~0.2C between 1950 and 1980.

Well, let me just say, with the “best knowledge” we have today it was relatively stable. (If my memory serves me in the older temperature series, the 0.2C drop occurred between 1940 and 1950, but perhaps you can dig up a reference and show me wrong. This is regardless, because “as far as we know now” GMT was more or less constant over that interval.)

Shocking indeed! But what I found truly outrageous is the startling revelation that NASA cherry-picked the baseline for their time series to maximise the planetary warming trend.
I am shocked I tell you. To the very core of my being.

Above link h/t to: http://www.klimanotizen.de/index.html
“http://www.klimanotizen.de/index.html
“Makarevich expects a normalization of Arctic temperatures in the coming years. This view appears to have the support of a growing number of Russian scientists.”

Off Topic – but I have a quesstion.
I found this on the Science Museum website under “evidence”, yep from the PROVE It poll.
“Scientists can tell the extra carbon dioxide around the Earth comes from fossil fuels by looking at the type of carbon. The carbon atoms in fossil fuels are lighter, on average, than those in air. Scientists can measure increasing numbers of lighter carbon atoms in the atmosphere over time. So we know the extra carbon dioxide comes from fossil fuels.”
Could somebody help me with a link to study that proves this? I’m looking to expand my knowledge. Thanks in advance.
If this is true, is anyone tracking this percentage difference at any frequency?

“But according to Babich, the situation is changing. The Arctic, he says, is already cooling, not warming. And the Russian government is attentively listening to those scientists who, like Babich, are predicting a cold spell.”

I remember reading somewhere a few years back (can’t remember who, when or where) that, in the mid- to late ’70s (I think), there was a step-change (upwards) of about 0.5C in the temperature record – which apparently went unnoticed.
Can anyone shed some light on this?

Ben (09:08:52) : Need some help. One of the WUWT items included a brief statement which was an very short, but a very excellent list of the punch points of Climate Gate. I believe it was written by an Australian Professor from the University of Western…
How about this:Mike’s Nature TrickRobert M. (14:15:43 on 20 Nov.) : So, What we have here is evidence that the team has engaged in:
1. Conspiracy
2. Government Fraud
3. Computer Fraud
4. Obstruction of Justice
5. Environmental Law Violations (Falsifying lab data pertaining to environmental regulations) (snicker)
6. Suppression of evidence
7. Tampering with evidence
8. Public Corruption
9. Bribery

Peter (12:00:25) :
There have probably been lots of these. Which record do you mean? Scafetta maintains there are stepwise problems with the satellite data. Many stations show sudden step changes, usually associated with being moved, lots documented in Anthony’s Surface Stations project. Around 1990 there was a sudden loss of stations globally which corresponds to a step increase in global temperatures at that time – most of the stations lost were rural. Hans Erren documented either here or at CA an apparent GISS programme for stepwise adjustments to the DeBilt records over a period of decades – that piece of work deserves to surface again soon!

re: timetochooseagain – “Of the Surface datasets, ONLY Hadley/CRU shows no warming for twelve years. If they are the best dataset, which Jones believes apparently, then the last twelve years of no warming pretty much blows the models out of the water.”
Roger Pielke Sr. had a guest Weblog By William DiPuccio “The Global Warming Hypothesis” that proposed just that scenario (http://climatesci.org/2009/05/05/have-changes-in-ocean-heat-falsified-the-global-warming-hypothesis-a-guest-weblog-by-william-dipuccio/):
“On the other hand, the current lapse in heat accumulation demonstrates a complete failure of the AGW hypothesis to account for natural climate variability, especially as it relates to ocean cycles (PDO, AMO, etc.). If anthropogenic forcing from GHG can be overwhelmed by natural fluctuations (which themselves are not fully understood), or even by other types of anthropogenic forcing, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that the IPCC models have little or no skill in projecting global and regional climate change on a multi-decadal scale. Dire warnings about “runaway warming” and climate “tipping points” cannot be taken seriously. A complete rejection of the hypothesis, in its current form, would certainly be warranted if the ocean continues to cool (or fails to warm) for the next few years.”

Plato Says (12:45:17) :
“Thanks, Phil. That was good. Now, kids, if you’ll watch very carefully, Phil will show you how to fill in a very useful piece of paper called a grant application form. You can send that to some very nice people in America – they’re like Father Christmas, but all the year round, and they give out lots of lovely money that people all over America pay them. Phil…”

Can Kevin and Tom be on the Phil and Michael show? How about Kevin and Ray and Malcolm and Gavin and…

Humour, however it is spelt, can often do more to sway attitudes than cold facts alone. There are serious times ahead and our futures depend on what happens next. A little light relief can lift spirits and improve morale.
Would Anthony consider starting a thread devoted to the humerous side of the AGW debate.
If that is possible may I nominate the telegraph warner link submitted by Plato Says as an entry?

Back to my ignorant layman persona (it’s what I do best!)
I came across this quote in John Brignell’s Number Watch:
“If you remove the corrections the effect disappears. Therefore the corrections are the effect. Furthermore, the stationary nature of the raw data does not indicate any requirement for corrections.”
Which seems eminently logical to this simple mind.
I then read here about doubts about using 51-80 as the base period for calculating because everyone else uses 61-90 (or 71-00 in some reports I’ve seen), and I ask myself, “why are we talking about ‘base periods’ and ‘anomalies’ and getting all worked up about the steepness or otherwise of graphs?”
“Why are we not using real numbers, as in: if the average annual temperatures in (say) the 1950s were 14.5, 14.7, 14.6, 14.5, 14.7, 14.8, 14.7, 14.8, 14.9, 14.9 then we have some figures that real people can understand and can say, “what the hell are we worrying about?” Or if the figures tell a different story we can all at least see what that story is.
Joe Public does not in general understand ‘anomalies’. If you want him to understand you have to give him something he’s familiar with.
Most people know about the various warm and cold periods that have occurred over recorded time, especially the Minoan, Roman, and Medieval Warm Periods and the mini ice ages that have happened in between but have been flummoxed by the scientists with their tree rings and ice cores into either believing that these things didn’t happen or that “this time it’s different” (why??).
Which is why I repeat my time-worn mantra: it’s never been about the science; it’s always been about the politics. And I wonder if the skeptics make things any better by not speaking language that the layman (who is the one who votes the politicians out) can relate to.
Just a thought!

Mattb (23:53:57) :
But you guys already know CRU is corrupt, so you can take from this that GISS is better. Or is Phil’s opinion suitable when it suits you?
One uses a good magician or con man to spot a poorer one… They are better at spotting the errors of the “play” than the innocents watching the show…

Wayne Findley (00:09:03) :
That’s how real science happens.
Thank you! The highest complement possible, IMHO.
FWIW, I’m close to figuring out how this whole circle of deception runs. NCDC via the GHCN data product cooks the thermometer record by deleting recent warm locations, but leaving in cold locations during the major ‘climate history’ data products ‘baseline’ intervals. But they can claim innocense since all they do is provide temperatures and times. CRUt and GIStemp then take GHCN and do some minor re-imaginings and then point at each other and at NCDC / GHCN and say “See! We are all independent and agree so we must be right!”. All being, at core, minor rehash of the same cooked thermometer history. They then use thier “eminance” to establish control of the “peer review” process and lock down the ownership of “their version of truth”…
Nice little “3 way” they have going on. And you can’t attack any of it without having the other 2 legs of the stool beat you over the head with the “Peer Review” stick. Nice. Tidy. Evil. (IMHO, of course.)
But I’ve shown GHCN is cooked with thermomter delitions at altititude and latitudes toward the poles. (and a finer finesse in some places like Mexico). And GIStemp is just dreck as a code base. And now CRUt is caught with their winky in the wringer…
IMHO, the place needing the most chopping next is the NCDC / GHCN that has an incestuous relationship with GISS via G.S. Flight Center and shared personelle. To claim this two are independent peers is a flat out deception.

bill (11:11:01) :
Lucy from your web site:
VJones inspired me to look into the UK records more closely. She says “We’re up against 0.6 deg warming/Century. If we can reduce that to 0.3 degrees, it is not ‘unprecedented’. I believe removing only a few real howlers, can have a dramatic effect. Look at Gardermoen: 3.73 degrees/century. There are sites like that one all over. ….
———–
“Do you not see that this statement is exactly what you accuse GISS CRU Pen Haddow of. You state that your aim is to prove that warmingh is .3degC/C . You are starting from a position of bias! – Not scientific”
========
It’s OK to start from a position of bias: that’s postulating a hypothesis. What’s not scientific is to end there, ignoring disconfirming evidence or alternative hypotheses that work better.

Ron (08:13:04) : I’m going to stick my neck out defend the guys who produced those long-term climate records. As I understand it they use three different approaches:
– CRU tries to use a sub-set of stations (c 4000) with long records.
– NCDC uses a larger number of stations (c 7000), some of which have shorter records, to estimate grid temperatures.
– GISS also uses a large number of records but works on difference over time, assuming that stations in or close a particular grid will all warm or cool at a similar rate.
Um, CRU has claimed they can recreate the lost data from GHCN data. That says they use GHCN. What part they throw out is the only real open issue (per their statements).
GISS uses primarily GHCN. They sporadically merge, blend, average the GHCN copy of the USA data with the USHCN copy of the USA data, but that is only for the 2% of the world that is the USA and they didn’t bother doing it from May 2007 until a week or so ago. They are substantially GHCN rebaked (or half baked).
That leaves NCDC. As near as I can tell, they are the orginators of GHCN and that is what folks mean when they talk about NCDC temperature data. (They have a lot of data series, if you mean some other series, please identifify it.)
The major difference between GIStemp and NCDC / GHCN is that GIStemp chops off the stuff older than 1880 and then does some splicing of records for locations, some computed infilling, and some (IMHO broken UHI adjustments).
If these three methods give similar results for underlying trends that in itself gives the results a degree of confidence.
If these three methods give similar results for underlaying trends this in itself gives the results a high degree of suspicion as they are all based on the GHCN data series that has had major deletions of cold location thermometer records, but only AFTER the baseline periods…
Keep the cold locations in the baseline periods. Toss them since about 1990. Yeah, I’d call that “suspicious”. That all 3 use this data and all 3 agree means one thing:
All Three Are Broken

Roger Knights: “It’ll develop along the lines of Watergate, with the public getting hooked on their weekly scandal…”
I doubt it. Remember that the central media drama of Watergate was the gradual exposure of conspiracy and cover-up, and the nightly revelations that followed.
In the current situation, no such conspiracy and cover-up has been alleged or shown, nor even any compelling evidence of wrongdoing. Given the timing of the hack/leak, what we have seen is probably the leaker’s best shot, and there’s unlikely to be much in the way of additional material to maintain a media drip-feed.
Just as importantly from a media perspective, the material is being used to support a pre-existing narrative, that climate scientists have engaged in corruption and fraud. That is probably one reason why the wider media is treating the issue with caution.
It’s also doubtful that many other whistle-blowers are waiting in the wings. Over the years there has been ample encouragement, and opportunity and outlets, for people to spill their beans, so anyone who has wanted to speak up has most likely done so.
My prediction is that some people will be chastened by this experience, knuckles may be wrapped, careers possibly hurt, data made more readily available. Some of these outcomes may even be desirable.

That last line of my prior comment was a Klingon… Carrick (07:54:22) :
One thing about GISS that has bothered a lot of people – the base period they use for calculating temperature anomaly is for 1951-1980.
That is probably the best choice, because temperature was relatively stable from 1950-1980.
Yes, quite definitely the best cherry pick possible from the available choices.
See:http://www.smhi.se/sgn0102/n0205/upps_www.pdf
I defy you to pick a better bottom.

There’s a mathematical misunderstanding here. By itself, the base-period simply sets the zero-level for anomalies. It cannot affect their trend. A poor choice relative to the long-term mean, however, introduces a bias. GISS’ base period covers the entire period of the 50’s and 60’s, when temperatures were declining from their earlier peaks. Thus GISS anomalies consistently show higher values than other indices. Although this discrepancy can be minimized by re-centering, the psychological effect of showing persistently high positive anomalies is difficult to eradicate in public perception.

Although this discrepancy can be minimized by re-centering, the psychological effect of showing persistently high positive anomalies is difficult to eradicate in public perception.

That’s actually the problem, not the trend itself, and few actually misunderstand this. In spite of Anthony’s statement in the OP, I would venture that’s really what he means, i.e., seeing an anomaly of 0.8 seems like a higher trend than one of 0.5 (for example), not because the slope is steeper, but because the anomaly is larger. Certainly people that construct the graphs know this, too.
Mark

SCIENCE MADE STUPID
All contents � Copyright 1985 Tom Wellerhttp://sms.mike.neir.org/sms.htm
Has an absolutely great section on the scientific method. There are two types he spells out, the inductive and the deductive. The inductive fits CRU to a T
#1. formulate hypothesis, #2. apply for grant… #4 alter data to fit hypothesis …..
Anthony perhaps you can get permission to reprint it here

Brendan H (15:52:09) :“Given the timing of the hack/leak, what we have seen is probably the leaker’s best shot, and there’s unlikely to be much in the way of additional material to maintain a media drip-feed.”
I wouldn’t be too sure. Additional e-mails involving the team will be subpoenaed by Inhofe’s committee. There’s likely to be embarrassing material in them that will titillate the public, and whet their blood-lust for more.“Remember that the central media drama of Watergate was the gradual exposure of conspiracy and cover-up, and the nightly revelations that followed. In the current situation, no such conspiracy and cover-up has been alleged [sure it has] or shown, nor even any compelling evidence of wrongdoing.”
Spoken like another Ron Zigler or Rabbi Korff (remember him?)! I hope you get interviewed as a CRUgate-defender on TV: there’s a need for someone to fill those roles, to heighten the absurdity of it all.
Unlike you, Monbiot has recognized that there is plenty of evidence of wrongdoing, collusion, and butt-covering among The Team, that the public is going to see it that way, and therefore that a timely abandonment of them and their indefensible activity is the only way for warmism to salvage some credibility from this train wreck. The truth of his insight should be obvious, but if you and your brethren would rather be oblivious, I’m fine with that. Don’t give up the [glug ….]!“Just as importantly from a media perspective, the material is being used to support a pre-existing narrative, that climate scientists have engaged in corruption and fraud. That is probably one reason why the wider media is treating the issue with caution.”
Sure. But now some of them are beginning to think, “Maybe we were wrong to dismiss the pre-existing narrative. That’s what we did with Watergate. We ignored McGovern’s pre-election charges that the break-in had been orchestrated from above because it sounded partisan, outrageously unlikely, and would have brought down obloquy on us if we had entertained the possibility publicly. Mutatis mutandis …”
Now that there’s been some “hard” confirmation of outsiders’ charges of smug, thuggish groupthink that has been “leaning” on the peer review process, climate critics no longer can be dismissed as cranks. They are going to be given a respectful hearing, at least in a fair number of venues.
Similarly, scientific societies are going to have to take a serious second look at this controversy, instead of just rubber-stamping the “correct” opinion. Every time one of them distances itself from the consensus, it’ll be newsworthy. Every time a warmist becomes a turncoat, or even merely criticizes an outrageous defense of the Team (like the absurd defenses of Nixon that were offered), it’ll be newsworthy.
The dam is cracking, the increased waterflow will widen the cracks, the media will like the ratings the drama is getting, more blood will get into the water, the feeding frenzy will intensify, more countries will put a hold on their anti-carbon legislation, more prestigious scientific statesmen and popularizers will weigh in on the side of caution or contrarianism, more hapless/ludicrous defenses of the consensus will be made, and the whole world will grab some popcorn and watch with glee.
Over the next few years, the warmists will be in retreat and on the defensive, despite occasional blips. The warm has turned. All the sanctimonious viciousness and hypocrisy (“we’re doing real science”) of the enviro-nuts to date will make them wonderful targets for popular scorn and down-peg-pulling.“Dr Phil Jones says this has been the worst week of his professional career.”
So far.

Lucy and EM Smith. Thanks for getting back to me.
I suppose what I am arguing is not that CRU and the others have got it right; clearly in some cases they certainly haven’t. What I am arguing is that they have developed the skills and have the resources to get it right and we should encourage this rather than forcing them into an corner.
We also have to recognise that the satellite data, for the last 3 decades, gives similar values to the observational record.
We also have to be consistent in our arguments. In 1998 the warmists claimed the high temperature was evidence of massive global warming and skeptics said it was an El Nino blip. Now it is the warmists who say it was a blip and skeptics who say it was genuine and since then the world has cooled.
A similar situation obtains in relation to phenomenological evidence. Skeptics say Medieval warming was real becasue of the extent of vinyards in England and evidence of a temperate climate in Greenland but reject similar arguments, increasing numbers of winyards in England and reduced Arctic ice, as evidence of 20th century warming. Warmists do the same in the other directions.
Solutions are simple when you use only a sub-set of the facts.

Roger Knights: “There’s likely to be embarrassing material in them that will titillate the public, and whet their blood-lust for more.”
Titillation is one thing, conspiracy another. To get a Watergate situation, you need actual scientific wrongdoing, strong evidence of fraud and collusion, and to date there’s been none of that, nor any reason to suspect any more such evidence in future.
“The dam is cracking, the increased waterflow will widen the cracks…”
At the beginning of 2009 a former NASA administrator came out in opposition to AGW, causing enormous excitement among sceptics. As one poster opined: “We are finally witnessing the last gasps of a dying theory.”
The death of AGW has been regularly predicted for a good while now. Certainly, this email leak is a more serious matter than the views of a retired scientist, and is a setback to climate science, but beware of confirmation bias. My suggestion is that celebration is premature, and may well lead to serious disappointment.
“Over the next few years, the warmists will be in retreat and on the defensive, despite occasional blips.”
You’re assuming that the CRU emails have disconfirmed AGW. But the current crop of climate scientists remain convinced that their science is correct. Whatever happens in the political sphere will not affect the scientific findings, nor, for that matter, the actual climate.

Ron (23:02:57) : says“…A similar situation obtains in relation to phenomenological evidence. Skeptics say Medieval warming was real because of the extent of vineyards in England and evidence of a temperate climate in Greenland but reject similar arguments, increasing numbers of winyards in England and reduced Arctic ice, as evidence of 20th century warming. Warmists do the same in the other directions.
Solutions are simple when you use only a sub-set of the facts.
Ron, you keep missing the basic point. “Unprecedented Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming” is a hypothesis that has to be PROVEN true.
The basics needed to do so are:
1. man is causing the current increase in CO2. Therefore it must be shown industrial release of CO2 completely override the natural processes such as release of CO2 by the oceans and sequestering of CO2 by plant life and what ever else effects the carbon cycle.
2. CO2 has such a large impact on climate compared to other factors that it overrides any self-correcting feed back mechanisms. Feed back mechanisms such as the increase in temperature and the increase in CO2 increases the uptake of CO2 by plants, and increases transpiration in plants. Increases in temperature also increase evaporation and the combined result is MORE clouds and an increase in cloud albedo thereby lowering the temperature and increasing CO2 up take in the oceans….
3. CO2 increases must be coupled with an overall continuous rise in temperature. Temperature plateaus and downward trends of any length (ten years) will disprove the “Catastrophic” part and the “CO2 has such a large impact on climate” part.
4.Unprecedented means without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unparalleled: This is why it was absolutely necessary to get rid of the Medieval, Roman and other Warm periods. Vineyards in England, Farming in Greenland, Farmsteads found under glaciers, Roman seaports found a mile inland… all disprove the supposition that the currant warm period is “Unprecedented” and “Catastrophic”
One little fact is all it takes to kill any hypothesis. Critics do not have to provide alternate hypotheses, just unearth one fact that does not fit. Find one fact that casts doubt on the truth of the facts presented or the methods used.
These e-mails/codes shows CRU is well aware of what it takes to kill their hypothesis and were using underhanded means to prevent critics from disproving their hypothesis. Unfortunately that awareness has not trickled down to laymen yet but those with a science or engineering backgrounds have pretty much grasped the fact. ANY fudging in the data or methods used to present the data kills the hypothesis. Suppressing opposing views/hypotheses, circumventing the peer review process and the freedom of Information Act just underlines that “fudging” was taking place.

Gail, just because I am prepared to recognise that the work of the CRU and others has value does not mean that I am unaware of its shortcomings nor does it mean that I support the concept of “Unprecedented Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming”.
Looking carefully at the emails it is clear that most climate scientists did not support it either. The word ‘catastrophic’ is never used in relation to recent warming. Mike Hulme has publically condemned use of that work. The word ‘unprecedented’ does appear a few times: often in quote marks, Briffa argues against using it, Mann (who else) appears to be the principal advocate for its use.
Virtually all scientists accept that temperatures today are higher that they would have been had there been no man-made CO2 in the atmosphere; what they cannot agree on is by how much.
You are however completely right about one thing. Only ‘catastrophic man-made global warming’ justifies the Gore/Hansen conspiracy and the Copenhagen process and there is no evidence for that.
That said we should also recognise that sooner or later humans will have to learn to live without carbon based fuels and we should be planning to make the transition as painless as possible.

Brendan H (01:57:26) :
Roger Knights: “There’s likely to be embarrassing material in them that will titillate the public, and whet their blood-lust for more.”
—————-
“Titillation is one thing, conspiracy another. To get a Watergate situation, you need actual scientific wrongdoing, strong evidence of fraud and collusion, and to date there’s been none of that, nor any reason to suspect any more such evidence in future.”
============
The Team stands accused of that and more. Look at some of the bills of particulars that others here have posted, and several newspaper columnists too. Argue with them. I’m convinced.
===========
===========
RK “The dam is cracking, the increased waterflow will widen the cracks…”
———-
“At the beginning of 2009 a former NASA administrator came out in opposition to AGW, causing enormous excitement among sceptics. As one poster opined: “We are finally witnessing the last gasps of a dying theory.”
The death of AGW has been regularly predicted for a good while now. Certainly, this email leak is a more serious matter than the views of a retired scientist, and is a setback to climate science, but beware of confirmation bias. My suggestion is that celebration is premature, and may well lead to serious disappointment.”
===============
I wasn’t among those who made such claims. I’m not inclined to such over-optimism. I can tell that this is different–I can smell blood. A brick has been removed from the wall that protected the team, and it will be much easier to pry out further bricks as a result. Now there is justification for congressional hearings examining the machinations of the IPCC and its failure to behave fairly. For instance, NASA scientist Vincent Gray has complained that he submitted over 1100 comments to the IPCC, all of which were ignored. The IPCC might soon have to justify those refusals. No doubt there are dozens of other scientists whose skeptical contributions were ignored, or whose drafts were high-handedly revised. The IPCC will have to justify those as well. It won’t come out looking good. Thereafter, its endorsement of alarmist findings won’t carry nearly as much weight among the innocent public and opinion-leaders as heretofore.
This is like the moment Nixon’s taping system was revealed. Until Buttersworth revealed that to the committee, it looked as though Nixon would be able to wiggle out of the affair. After that, the pursuit went into high gear. I was watching at the time and realized instantly, “Now they’ve got him. He can run, but he can’t hide.” I have a similar feeling about this business. Until now the Team was Teflon: accusations slid off them, because of their presumptive objectivity and high-mindedness. Now they are under a cloud of suspicion, subject to subpoena and testimony under oath; they won’t be able to keep their misdeeds concealed from all but their victims. They’re on the run.
As Monbiat has said, persons like you who don’t/won’t realize the dreadfulness of this situation for your side are living in a fool’s paradise.
=========
=========
RK: “Over the next few years, the warmists will be in retreat and on the defensive, despite occasional blips.”
——–
“You’re assuming that the CRU emails have disconfirmed AGW.”
==========
On the contrary, I’ve made several posts in the past few days stating that I think the effect of the Team’s fiddling with the measured temperature data is likely minor, and that the overall shape of the blade of the hockey stick won’t be changed much. (I’ve also said repeatedly that there are likely innocent explanations for much of the awkward material in the e-mails.) So I don’t think that AGW has been disproved.
I see what’s happened as the first step in a lengthy process of objectively and scientifically reexamining the data and reasoning behind warmism, after the Team and the IPCC and peer review have had their halos removed. Their prestige, plus their power and willingness to enforce groupthink by any means necessary, will no longer be factors. Doubters will feel safe to speak out.
============
============“But the current crop of climate scientists remain convinced that their science is correct. Whatever happens in the political sphere will not affect the scientific findings, nor, for that matter, the actual climate.”
That’s naive. Academic and social “politics” already taints their judgment. Until now climate science has been politicized, in the sense that the Team’s paradigm was “enforced” by their mafia tactics and by madly warmist funding agencies, journal editors, and journalists. In such an environment, “Reason comes running / Eager to ratify.”
Once de-politicalization occurs and marginalized voices can be heard and harkened to without penalty, and non-warmist research can get funded, opinions among climate scientists are likely to shift substantially.
Of course, for many it will be too awkward to change, because they are so complicit in the shiftiness of warmism’s history. They will hang tough, like the tiny crew of post-Watergate Nixon loyalists.

PS: I should have said above that the main outcome of Climategate, IMO, is that the Team is no longer trustworthy in the public eye, and that a cloud of suspicion has fallen over peer review, the IPCC, and the consensus, which seems to have been engineered or manufactured. This is where the real damage has occurred, on an intangible level. Therefore, a re-do of the case for CAWG, under neutral scientific auspices, is needed. Plus more transparency, etc.

Ron, you are like an atheist that prays on his deathbed.
You claim to be skeptical of/offended by the antics of the CRU scientists, because that is the popular bandwagon to be on right now. But just in case, you still leave yourself an out with this ridiculous statement:
“Virtually all scientists accept that temperatures today are higher that they would have been had there been no man-made CO2 in the atmosphere; what they cannot agree on is by how much.”
Well I am a well respected scientist, and you are officially fired as my spokesman. Bro, the laws of thermodynamics which say that there is no such thing as a perpetual energy machine. So NO amount of CO2 is going to create the net positive feedback loops that this whole inane theory rests on. Even if you foolishly look at the Earth as a closed system. Add in solar variability, orbital precessing of the Earth around the sun and moon around Earth, our 5000K inner core, cosmic radiation, the -200+K temps of the space around us, and atmospheric exhaust as we hurtle through space at 6 figure speeds, and the utter ridiculousness of the proposition that a 0.008% increase in anthropogenic CO2 over 100 years is creating some significant climate change becomes obvious. All these complex non-linear influences, yet there is some direct straight-line correlation between CO2 and temperature. Sure…and Sea Monkeys have an ordered society and pose for pictures just like on the box too.
Playing both sides so that you can quickly jump to the side that’s winning is just as much a distortion of science as anything these CRU jokers have done. At least they were willing to go down with their ship. Claiming belief in two directly contradictory ideas, so that you can be popular in any room, is a great if you are a salesman or WalMart greeter, but scientifically it is more offensive than blatant lying…

The one question I have is:
If this computer model is so great why hasn’t it been adapted to the stock market? They could make trillions regardless of which the market goes.
And that answers the question about the value of the model. If it was one tenth as good as they claim they could have made a fortune off of the market. To my knowledge NO ONE has made a model that can follow/predict the stock market. And think about how much simpler that would be. Think of all the recorded, stored, hour-by-hour data on the market and the associated perturbers/influencers’ going back hundreds of years.

CO-Two Guy. Nice analogy but wrong.
Have a look at our web site (www.climatedata.info) and you will see that I am not jumping on a band-wagon. The way we present the output from the GCMs in relation to temperature and precipitation (often forgotten) could be considered sceptic. The fact that our own calculations show some lower troposphere warming would be considered ‘warmist’. I have often quoted the figures we present on polar bears, sea level rise and tropical storms as evidence that we are not on the verge of a catastrophe. In short our site is one of the few truly independent sources of information.
CO2 has an absorbtion spectrum from about 14 to 18 microns, well within the range of the earth’s long-wave radiation of 5 to 50 microns. It is widely accepted that without CO2 the earth’s temperature would be around 30C lower than it is today. CO2 has risen from 280 ppm pre-industrial to almost 400 ppm today. This has raised temperatures and as I say it is generally accepted by warmist and informed sceptics. See for example:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html

@ Mick (23:33:20) :
“What I don’t understand that they had 20 odd years to calibrate/homogenise the process between different instruments, methods and countries.
Before they want to take over the world…”
I get the impression Hansen and Jones don’t like each other ONE BIT, but they are roped together by the need to perpetuate this lie. As long as their graphs looked similar, they were OK to publicly agree with each other while stabbing each other in the back amongst their little clique. What they could NOT do is publicly denounce each other (even the slightest bit), because by doing so they would have to admit there is no consensus and the flow of funding would be brought into question.
I think this led to them to not really share with each other to create this homogeneity that you are referring to. I think of it as a kind of a competition to see who could make the scariest and yet most plausible looking hoax. I would imagine whoever came out on top of that competition got the most funding or something.

Roger Knights: “Now there is justification for congressional hearings examining the machinations of the IPCC and its failure to behave fairly. For instance, NASA scientist Vincent Gray has complained that he submitted over 1100 comments to the IPCC, all of which were ignored.”
The mere existence of grievance proves nothing. A large number of comments by one commentator might indicate an in-depth knowledge of many areas of climate science. On the other hand, it may just indicate bloviating on a grand scale.
“Thereafter, its endorsement of alarmist findings won’t carry nearly as much weight among the innocent public and opinion-leaders as heretofore.”
Unless you are arguing that the mere fact of justification is its own proof, as long as the IPCC can justify its choices, there is no a priori reason to conclude that such justification is damaging to its conclusions.
“Once de-politicalization occurs…”
The release of the CRU emails was a political act. Any subsequent investigations will be political acts. The only way to “de-politicise” the science is to wait for a few hundred years.
“…the Team’s paradigm was “enforced” by their mafia tactics and by madly warmist funding agencies, journal editors, and journalists.”
One could equally argue that the dominance of climate science by warmers is an effect rather than a cause of the science.
“…and marginalized voices can be heard and harkened to without penalty, and non-warmist research can get funded, opinions among climate scientists are likely to shift substantially.”
So-called marginalised voices have been heard all along. All the big-name sceptics are well known by anyone who has taken an interest in the field. Importantly, most of the big names date from at least the 90s. This suggests that there are few if any unknown sceptics of any substance in climate science.
Ultimately, whatever investigations are held, the issue will be decided by the science. If climate scientists have confidence in their research, any assumptions about shifting opinions due to external circumstances are still very speculative.

Give it up Brendan H …
AGW may or may not be real – but at this point in time, it’s quite obvious that we can’t just take the word of Phil Jones et al as definitive on anything on the subject. And neither can we now trust any scientific paper (which could be thousands) that made use of their dataset as axiomatic because the evidence is as clear as day that they fudged and manipulated it to show a predetermined result.
And then they somehow lost all the raw data – and Phil Jones is on record as saying he would rather delete these files than make them available to non-members of his little cult for replication.
Then we have clear evidence of collusion to stonewall skeptics when they seek data, to tar and feather the reputations of skeptics simply for being skeptics, and to pervert the peer review process so skeptics’ findings that go against the “consensus” would not get published in scientific journals via threats and calumniation.
Which makes it even more egregious when they turn around to cite skeptics’ papers non-appearance in peer-reviewed journals as evidence that they are right.
Worse is that they perverted the peer review process so that only people in the same clique, who would not be so bothersome as to ask for things raw data, details of methods and all the other stuff that have underpinned the scientific method for so many centuries would be peer-reviewing their work. In other words, they made it a rubber-stamp operation.
It’s all in there – if it were one or two e-mails your appeals for caution would be more apt. But it is much more than one or two, or even twenty, isn’t it? This attempt to convince people here to continue to trust your idols over their “lying eyes” “until an investigation” is not very convincing, IMO.
Warmists have been trying to append secrecy and demonizing skeptics to the scientific method. Now that the curtain has been drawn, I guess we’re finding out why.

Graham Knight: “This attempt to convince people here to continue to trust your idols over their “lying eyes” “until an investigation” is not very convincing, IMO.”
I’m merely suggesting that people adopt a sceptical attitude to these emails, ie withhold judgement until the evidence is clearer.
For many climate sceptics, the ideal outcome from this episode would be the general discrediting of AGW, the jailing of the leading perpetrators and a return to the status quo ante. That’s not going to happen; there’s too much converging evidence from too many disciplines for a scandal to overturn the entire theory. At best there may be some sacrificial heads.
In that case, the risk for climate sceptics in this episode is that the “truther” element could swamp the more moderate element, and climate scepticism could become irrevocably identified with anti-science movements such as creationism.
Climate sceptics have an opportunity to provide a “teachable moment” and show how scepticism properly operates. That means a sifting of the evidence, not just a cranking up of long-established talking points.

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